Australians are buying more notebooks than desktops

With technology getting smaller and smaller, it's no doubt that desktop computers are being replaced by notebooks and laptops, with sales of the latter overtaking the former in Australia. The reasons for this are many, and with all the advantages of a portable computer it makes sense for the rest of us to follow suit.

While notebook PCs were once significantly more expensive than desktops, that's no longer the case. Though you can expect to pay a little bit more for a notebook with the same specs compared to desktops, you can still get a fairly high end laptop at a highly affordable price with very little difference. What you do get for the money however is practicality and portability.

Having a notebook allows you to work anywhere  outside in the sun (so long as you have a screen that can handle the glare), on the train, in the living room with the family or even on holiday. This means that you can increase productivity massively and waste far less time travelling when you could be travelling and getting things done. It also means you can increase multitasking however, and this way you'll be able to work while socialising or watching TV. As well as allowing you to work on the go however, a notebook PC will also help you work in other ways too. For example a laptop can be taken to meetings or lectures and used to make notes, or can be taken to a presentation and plugged into the projector in order to provide a PowerPoint presentation  things that you certainly couldn't do with a full sized PC.

A notebook doesn't just help you work though, and it can improve your leisure time as well. Taking a laptop on the train with you or on the plane means that you have a whole media entertainment centre sitting on your lap; like having an MP3 player, Xbox, e-book reader and portable DVD player with you all at once. You can also use a laptop to create playlists and DJ at parties and then plug it into some speakers in the room where everyone's mingling.

With a desktop PC, the tower itself is larger and heavier than a notebook, on top of that though there's also the keyboard and the monitor. Obviously this means the PC takes up far more space and if you have a small room it can be a big hassle. If you move about regularly it can also be cumbersome and tiring to set it back up each time, so notebooks make a great option for the Australian student (along with the aforementioned use in lectures and parties).

A notebook also has a coolness factor that a desktop just doesn't have somehow. A sleek looking laptop that you can carry with you everywhere and get out to jot notes in the pub looks far sexier than having a hulking great machine back home  no matter how high the specs are.

The only other slight downside to the notebook however is that there's less option to modify and upgrade the system meaning you'll have to invest in a new laptop about once every four to five years to stay current  but with the price of computer parts so high anyway it's certainly worth it for all the benefits it will bring.